Can someone — you, the Internet, Miss Cleo, Flying Spaghetti Monster, anyone — please tell me where the hell I put the bin with all the size 3T shorts? Because I have lost the bin with all the size 3T shorts and possibly, also, my mind.

Not to be dramatic or anything (HAHAHA), but whenever I am asked*, "Amy, you have three boy children, how do you do it?" My answer is always the same: A ruthlessly efficient and impeccably organized system of hand-me-down bins. I have prided myself for years on my system, my ritual, my dedication to having the next size ready to go at a growth-spurt's notice, sorted by seasonal appropriateness and school vs. playtime quality. I believe that if you lose control of the hand-me-down cycle, the entire household structure will collapse into unspeakable chaos and probably catch on fire.

*I am never asked that.

And here I am, trying to figure out how in the world an entire oversized plastic bin full of clothing has gone missing. In this house, which is not that big, and not exactly flush with extra storage areas and hidey-holes where a bin could disappear into, never to be seen (or tripped over, or moved or cursed at because it's blocking your path to something important) again.

The bin of 3T shirts and PJs (spring/summer) was right where it was supposed to be, in Ike's closet. The 3T winter clothing had already been taken out of its bin and entered the wearable rotation a couple months ago. I assumed the 3T shorts were in the bin underneath that, but no. It was full of 4T clothing (winter). The only other bin in Ike's closet was also 4T clothing (spring/summer; but totally missing all the shorts). Ezra's wearing all the 5T; the bins in their closet are just Noah's outgrown 6/7 clothing. A thorough search of dresser drawers and wearable rotation contents revealed no 3T shorts, anywhere.

(I'm sure this is all quite fascinating. But this has seriously been consuming my life all week so I am compelled to share forensic-level details with you.)

Besides their closets, here are all the other places a bin of hand-me-downs could be, and all the other places I have looked, REPEATEDLY:

1) My closet. (No)

2) Under their bed? If maybe I packed them in a kind of weirdly small box instead of a bin? (No, but I found some Legos.)

3) Under my bed? (No, but I found a shoe I thought I'd lost.)

4) On the shelves in the basement. (No, but I should probably donate the maternity wear bin already.)

5) On the floor of the basement, maybe under some crap? Or in some weird corner of the basement, behind some more crap? (No, ew.)

6) The closet in the basement where I keep hand-me-down outerwear? (No, like I'd ever mix shorts with snowpants, I'm not an anarchist.)

7) The dusty awful attic crawlspace. (No, but now I think I have the black lung.)

8) Seriously, how is this bin not in either of their closets? Maybe I should go look again. (No.)

9) Maybe I should unpack the 4T bins just to make sure it really is all 4T. (Yes, and holy shit, why aren't there any shorts here, either?)

10) ROSEBUDDDDDDDDDDD. REDRUMMMMMM. AND ETCETERAAAAA.

Yesterday I finally caved and bought Ike two (2) measly pairs of $6 (six dollah) shorts at Old Navy. (Before that, I'd just been cutting legs off of his 2T jeans. Unfortunately my sewing machine skills are still pathetically rudimentary, so an attempt at hemming khaki pants into khaki shorts resulted in a pile of khaki scraps.)

I bought the shorts mostly in hopes that I would bring them home and then promptly trip over the hand-me-down bin, which was sitting there someplace obvious this whole time. I only bought two pairs because COME ON, he's the third boy. The last boy. The boy who has benefitted from a long, industrious line of former 3T shorts-wearers, including his brothers, his cousin, one neighbor and at least two friends who have given me entire garbage bags' worth of clothing. YOU DON'T BUY NEW CLOTHES FOR A BOY LIKE THAT.

At this point, I can only think of three possible solutions to this mystery:

1) That I had some kind of massive brain-fart/neurological/drunk incident where I bagged up the 2T shorts from last summer to donate, and accidentally tossed in all the 3T shorts that I didn't realize had already been integrated into the wearable rotation. (Possible, I guess. But then where are the 4T shorts? HUH? RIDDLE ME THAT, BATMAN.)

2) That there is another wing of my house that I have not yet discovered or have completely forgotten about, perhaps accessible by a magic secret passage, full of money, the missing shorts, lost earrings backs and probably a shitload of Legos.

3) Aliens.

Anyway. I am so irrationally annoyed by this, as you can probably tell. Please send help, most notably of the mental variety. I'm going to try sewing a semi-straight hem again today, because I am not buying any more shorts. I will go down with this principled ship, and I will never stop looking for that stupid bin of hand-me-downs, because WTF, man, it's gotta be around here somewhere, right? Right?

Comments

I searched over and over and over again all through my house for a skirt I sewed my daughter last spring that has been missing almost since I made it. And them my mom called me a few weeks ago and told me she'd found a skirt of Adele's in with her summer clothes.
I felt vindicated that I hadn't thrown it out accidentally and irritated that I'd spent so much time looking for it when it wasn't even at my house all at the same time.
So what I'm saying is have you checked your mother's house yet?

Is it possible that there were no 3T or 4T shorts?? My boys went thru a weird stage where they stayed in the 2Ts an extra long time once they were out of diapers. The waist still fit fine with the big boy undies... I think the next size I started buying was 5. But my "baby" is almost 18 so WTFDIK?

When you find the secret wing of the house, I'm sure you'll find the missing boys' UNDERWEAR and 25 pairs of white socks that mysteriously disappeared from our house. Seriously, how does UNDERWEAR disappear.

This is so weird. I too have 3 boys (plus 1 girl) with a 4th boy on the way. Just 2 days ago I sorted through all the clothes in an effort to get organized before new baby arrives, and could not find any summer clothes in 12 months, 18 months, or 24 months. Considering my youngest is 2 and a half, and we live in Miami, SURELY the smaller clothes must be here. I was in despair, surrounded by useless sweaters and jeans. It's because we're both named Amy, right? Same wavelength? :) But where are the clothes?

This may be an entirely unhelpful suggestion so please forgive me but is there any chance that there never were any 3T shorts? If the older boys were at the end of their size range when summer hit could you have perhaps gone straight to 4T? (Not that this explains the missing 4T shorts...) If this sounds like absolute foolishness then my only other suggestion is to pull the drawers out of the dresser and look in the spaces behind them. We've lost several things to the black hole behind the drawers...

This happens to me at least 3 times a year - I have one closet where our hand me downs live in bins (sorted and labeled by size). A few times a year I go through and pull out the next size/seasonal needs, but then usually make a dumb decision to leave some in there because we aren't quite in that size yet. THEN - when I realize that all the shorts in the drawer suddenly don't fit and vividly remember that I had already gone through the bins so, if I'm short on shorts, I must not have had many saved, and then go shopping. Then I find the hand me downs the next time I go through the bins - usually for winter clothes - and *facepalm*.

I bought some Clinique a few weeks ago and then realized the foundation I bought was exactly the same as the sample freebie size. I put away my new bottle and used the freebie....until it ran out this week. Three days later after a frantic excavation under the bathroom sink in all manners of drawers/bins/bags and boxes, I had not found it. Was all set to order another one b/c maybe I tossed it out, thinking the package was empty? Last night, I found it. Under the same bathroom counter in its original packaging. We are all half crazy with efficiency. What I did not think of was that I should have used my big size first, then when it ran out I could have used the sample as a way to buy time before ordering more. DUH.

my second kid has hit a range of clothes that my elder seemed to mostly skip over. i don't remember elder skipping from 3t to 6, but that seems to be what happened. i have a few 4t, but not even close to a full summer's worth. i guess i'll have to shop.

1) No 3T or 4T shorts to begin with like someone suggested, but maybe due to weather/growth spurts/timing?
2) Any storage space under the stairs?
3) Any storage cupboard in the kitchen area?
4) Outside shed?
5) Never packed up, but instead in Noah's/Ezra's/Ike's dresser drawers?
6) Somewhere offsite where you may have moved some things when you thought you were going to move to a new house?
7) Goodwill/Friend/Trash when you thought you were moving houses and just grabbed the wrong bin?
8) Obama's to blame.

Yes, we also seem to have gone straight from 18 month to 4T for summer shorts, mainly because the 18 month shorts fit again once the 3-4 year old was out of diapers since we didn't need to account for padded diaper butt. So try a few 18M shorts on Ike, they might fit.

My mystery right now is where are the 2T short sleeved shirts? I'm guessing mixed in with 3 & 4T, but if not, I'm also buying a new wardrobe for the youngest boy - blah!

OY! I hear you girlfriend! Losing things makes me batty. Because it signifies a flaw in the system and if the system is flawed, if I can't rely on my brain to function properly and remember where I put stuff, then what hope is there? What is the next thing I will forget/lose and what if it's more important than some hand-me-down shorts? SO - we must take a deep breath and let it goooo (like the song from "Frozen"). Maybe post a message on your local neighborhood or preschool list-serve asking for 3T/4T short hand-me-downs? Also this time of year lots of people are having family yard sales. Hit a few and you may be rewarded.

I, too, manically organize the kids' hand-me-down clothing. It's partly out of necessity. I trade with a family that has an older boy and younger girl, so that we pass them girl clothes and they pass us boy clothes. If I'm not organized, I can't pass anything on! So the first thing I check when I'm missing a bin is: have we traded that size yet? This clearly does not apply to you.

The next place I look is under the next size up. Under in the bin, by emptying the whole thing, and under in the next bin, because what if I stacked them in the wrong order somehow. (My manic organizational skills apparently do not extend to LABELING the bins). You've already done checked under. I'm not sure I'm helping any.

My last place to check is the garage. It's the last place because I inevitably find the bin I'm missing under a pile of camping gear, toys to be donated and the bin of maternity clothes. Do you have a garage?

I don't know, but now that you've blogged it, it has to show up, right? (Like developmental milestones that seem to not be showing up on time until RIGHT as you hit the publish button?) In any case, make sure to update us. The world is waiting to hear the resolution of this mystery...

Ugh, this is so me. I just bought my son 2 new pj sets, about a month ago, and a shirt is already lost. Do you know how much pajamas cost? Spend to the y. Spendy. I have looked ev-er-y-where. Everywhere. Even in the fitted sheets on the beds. I am so annoyed by this I can't stand even myself.

Your mission: to make straight hems. Get one (1) crayola marker. one (1) ruler, and one (1) pair of pants. Fold pant leg to appropriate length, draw straight line where the new hem will be. Sew on line. Wash the washable marker away. This message will self destruct in five (5) seconds.

I feel your pain. Something like this would bug the daylights out of me too.

However, my main interest is that your not quite yet 3yo needs 3T shorts. Tot has worn his age sized clothes since birth except for shorts. He is 4.5 yo and 3T shorts are still big on him, but he has to wear them for length. No daisy dukes up in here!

MATERNITY CLOTHES! In all seriousness, if you mail that box of maternity clothes to me I will pay for shipping plus send a little extra $$ so you can buy some wine to drink while you look for those God forsaken shorts.

We DEFINITELY had 3T shorts. No doubt in my senile mind. I even remember a couple of them specifically — cute little plaid ones from Old Navy and Gymboree that matched the 3T shirts now hanging in Ike's closet. My boys more or less skipped the 18mo size but once we were in the 2T/3T range we stockpiled a full year's worth of clothing, especially since my sister sends me a ton of stuff too. THE SHORTS ARE REAL. I WANT TO BELIEVE.

Office closet, negative. Same for entryway closet. No stairway storage. Have checked all dresser drawers and all closet shelves underneath/behind hanging clothes.

There IS a bag of Goodwill-bound stuff in the trunk of Jason's car, however, so I'm going to check that tonight — I'm 99% sure it's all my old clothes, but that's a very good idea, and makes as much sense as any other place at this point.

Will check Room of Requirement next, I guess. (And yes, I also hoped posting about this would make the bin magically appear, since buying new shorts didn't work. DAMMIT.)

(And I also have that dream about finding a whole other section of my house! I love that dream! Except when I wake up and am all, "Man, my house is so boring. Not even ONE spiral staircase or tunnel.")

So, Boy Child #1 was wearing 3T shorts at the end of one summer, and I put them away somewhere, then Boy Child #2 was born that Fall. Next Spring comes and Boy Child #1 still fits into 3T shorts, but they are no where to be found. No where. Looked for them everyhwere but by God, I had a colicky infant and a toddler who wanted to go out and play, so I bought a whole new set of 3T shorts. Now that #2 is old enough to fit into 3T, I just found both sets of shorts. Then our neighbors gave us their hand-me-downs, and they only wear shorts. It could be 15 degrees and snowing and these two boys across the street are wearing shorts. So now my kid has like 20 pairs of 3T shorts. It's insane. I have 3 pairs of shorts that fit me, why does my 2 year old need 20? Anyway, point is, I live in Alexandria, and have extra shorts. Want them?

This happened to me this year too...Missing entire outfits I KNOW my oldest daughter wore. Granted, my "system" (HAHAHAHAHAHA) is not nearly as proficient as yours...but I know I had those damn clothes two years ago. Where are they when I need them now, for #2?!
We live in Baltimore, so perhaps there's some sort of weird summer-toddler-clothes crime ring in the area that we're not aware of.
I dunno. That's all I got.

I am on team "never had them," although it is surprising you didn't notice that when packing up. ALMOST worth searching the archives for a "hey, what do you know, both Noah and Ezra totally skipped 3T and 4T shorts" posts. By the way - I do not recommend donating the maternity clothes. I understand that makes unexpected and even unrealistic babies happen.

This is IN NO WAY going to help you find the shorts you own, but I recently discovered the FB "online yard sales" groups in the DC area and holy lord do people like to buy them some used clothes!
Step 1: join one
Step 2: sell box of maternity clothes
Step 3: use proceeds to buy kids shorts
Step 4: profit??!?

They'll only turn up after you successfully sew straight hems on everything hemmable, right? And maaaaaaan, I'd also like to throw my hat in the ring for that bin of maternity clothing. Mine went to a cousin and I now realize that even though she asked and I said yes, please keep it and don't pass it on, I do hope to need it again...getting it back will involve revealing way before I'd prefer to. D'oh.

Is there ANY chance you handed them down to a family member or friend and they just haven't given them back yet? And you've totally forgotten you ever did it? Not that that's every happened to me! Twice:).

Once I thought I'd lost a box of toothpicks, and three years later I got on facebook and bitched about it. My best friend was like, oh, those? They're at my house! Maybe try that? :) Good luck, that would drive me even more crazy than the toothpick thing.

Did you loan them to someone? I do not have your very organized system of clothing storage...I just put my daughter's initials on them and loan them out to my friends who recently had baby girls. I will probably kick myself for not keeping an inventory of what I have and where they went...but for now, at least I don't have to store them!!

I totally could have written this and would be feeling an equal level of stress about it. My husband refers to me as the "asset tracker" because I know when we are missing clothes, shoes or even one Ikea plate or spoon. It's a gift. Embrace it.

I just had to chime in on this, because my life has recently been consumed by a similar dilemma: where are the pedals for my 11-year-old's bike? We took them off last summer, so she could learn balancing prior to pedaling, I *know* I spent most of last summer tripping over the bag they were in, in the utility closet, but now that she's ready to have them put on her bike, NOWHERE TO BE FOUND. Argh!

Okay, so I think now that they're either in your attic (no, really), or in that Goodwill-bound bag, or (and you didn't mention this, so I'll try again) in some place else that you moved stuff when you thought you were going to move. Or the kitchen. I think they're somewhere random like the kitchen. Or the linen closet! I so want to find it for you (I love this kind of sh¡t, I'm telling you! klog.imjustsaying.org:81/2008-09-24/one_sheet_to_the_wind)

Last year I spent a month looking for our 2T summer clothes, and nearly going mad. It happened to be in a bin that was just chilling in the middle of my girls' bedroom, serving as a toddler bed night stand. Yeah. I felt like an idiot.

I remember you writing about a bin you were tripping over in the hallway, around the time you were going to move. I think you had Jason do something with it? Maybe tucked in tight in a dark corner in the attic or in the scary room in the basement? If not maybe there is a consignment sale in your area? I got a bunch of nice stuff for my kids at one this year. We move away from all the people with hand me downs. Just a thought.

Our basement flooded with sewage between boy #1 and #2 and right after we moved and had no organization to all of the storage bins. Now our youngest will have all of these great hand-me-downs for certain sizes and the next size we will realize he had nothing because it was one of the bins that had to be thrown away. Grrr!

I'm stuck in a no-shorts situation myself. All winter, I was purchasing 4T pants when I found good deals (Goodwill, Target, Kohl's, etc) because I knew that my 4T hand-me-down box was a little skimpy, but I should have enough shorts and T-shirts. Well, I finally unpacked it a couple weeks ago and sorted through everything, and now I have about 50 million pairs of long pants, and no joke, 3 pairs of shorts total. Apparently the long pants wardrobe was juuuuusssst fine.

The situation isn't dire though, because my 4.5yo still fits fine into his 3T shorts from last year. Heck, he was even sporting a pair of 24mo shorts last week without a problem (skinny butt). I'm just loathe to spend $50 on shorts for the last child. Maybe I'll follow your lead and take some of those surplus pants and see if I can make some serviceable shorts.

Some Italian: ''la casa non ruba'' meaning your house doesn't steal. I didn't know clothes could survive more then 2 boys. I found a long time missing Dora in an old bag and my watch in the dirty laundry. My mom has to help me when I sort clothes for my four girls; the worse is that after all those hours they mostly want to wear the same things everyday.

Looooooong time reader, first time commenter. Felt compelled to finally de-lurk because this exact thing happened to me with a bin of size 3's. I looked EVERYWHERE. Twice. (Maybe more than twice.). Finally convinced myself that we had lost it in the move we made whilst preggo with number two. Bought a whole new size 3 wardrobe. That hurt man, that hurt. Fast forward a few months and I found the bin serving valiantly as my older son's nightstand that was supposed to be a temporary measure during the move. Check all your furniture that may be covered with Cars placemats..you might be pleasantly surprised.

I seem to remember this happening to you once before - was it with Ezra? And wasn't it even this size clothing?

I am also pretty meticulous in my organizing and labeling of clothing - I avoid mixing up sizes of clothing in the wearing rotation (when it's time to go up a size, I go through and pull everything of the old size out of the dresser and closet and restock with the new size). The containers are labeled by size, and when I have too many of one size to fit into a single bin, I also divide the clothes by season. I even pack outfits togethe to make sure that whoever gets the clothes next knows what they'll find when they open the box and so they'll easily know which top goes with which bottom. Unfortunately, the friend that I'm getting clothes from for my daughter isn't nearly as thorough in her sorting and labeling - the last batch of clothes I got had everything from 12M to 2T pants/shorts/skirts in it. I also have several skirts and pairs of shorts and pants that are adorable but I'm not putting them into the rotation because they have wacky colors or patterns on them and I can't find any shirts that could possibly go with them. I will say this, though - her daughter has a much larger variety of clothing labels than my kids do - I tend to stick with Old Navy, Carter's, Circo, and Jumping Bean with a few Garanimals thrown in for day care backup clothes.

Having said all of that, I don't really have anything constructive to add, but I will wish you luck in your search!

I'm a little concerned at how much your mystery intrigues me, I clearly need more hobbies. But... Here's what would have happened in my household of two boys. The 3T shorts would have been put into circulation as (ill-fitting, unfashionable) pants for the 2 year old. So, in this scenario, the shorts have been wandering your house all along, just in disguise!

It's aliens.
Similarly, my oldest boy apparently never wore 5T in the fall/winter as there were NO pants. In contrast, I must have had triplet boys wearing 5T in the summer time because OMG 28 pairs of shorts! 20 of which are plaid! (half of which are at the consignment shop now because 28 pairs!!!)

Ugh, I loathe packing and unpacking clothes. I wish I had sold/given away so many things and just bought new later on. Most of the toys never worked again (darn southern summers) Too thrifty/broke though with the clothes.

My 3 year-old is still wearing mostly 2t because he is tiny but I need to get to the bins this weekend. I worry we did skip 3T, though....my older boy was always huge.

I had the SAME thing happen to me with boy child #2 and the 3T shorts. I would suggest that perhaps there is some kind of 3T-shorts-eating monster lurking…but in my case it was just a staggering amount of dumbness, and the shorts were found before I had to buy too many new pairs. (I recently had a similar situation with the 5T pajamas, but this time I outsmarted the dumbness! Aha!) I have given away many of my 3T shorts, but I probably still have some of them. I am seriously happy to send them to you if you want them. Old Navy, Gymboree (my MIL works there!), etc. Just let me know. :)

Ok. Time to pray to Saint Anthony. Seriously...never fails...and I'm not even religious. Got this from my polish grandma. It's like magic: think of what you're missing and say, "dear st Anthony...dressed in brown...something's lost and must be found."

My boy #1 and soon to be boy #2 all get hand-me-downs from my sister. She has sent me bins and bins of clothes, more than any 5 children could wear. but there is not a single 3T short to be found. I had to go buy a few pairs for the poor kid. I agree that most aliens must wear that size, so they are stealing them all.

There is almost 4 years between mine and I can't do hand me downs cuz kid #2 is only 5-8lbs off from kid #1. The shorts/pants might be a tich bit long but the waist fits great. Although mine are in the wrong season, kid #2 was a summer baby and kid #1 was a winter baby. I have made quite a few pairs of shorts out of pants thought. Cut and go..screw hemming. That's so 1950's. LOL

If it is super hot this summer we shall all blame you, since you and your stinkin' principles won't allow you to buy new shorts. Poor Baybee Ike will be wandering around in undies while his Mama rants about the shorts and the heat and the bins!

They're probably at my house. You don't know how they got here and I sure as hell don't, but as mom to three Dudes older than yours I've learned that mysteries like this aren't meant to be solved and maybe it's the reason they tore holes in half of their pants this month, to they'd have something I could make shorts out of when the DC weather goes inexplicably from 68 to 90 overnight. Happy hunting!

I have to comment now bc there are 69 (!!) comments and I can't let that # stand bc I am a 12 y.o. boy at heart. Anyway -- didn't you have a storage pod when you were going to sell the house? Does that still exist - could the bin be there? (back to creepy reading/stalking)

This has absotively nothing to do with lost clothing, but I thought you might like to see some of the changes to LegoLand Florida. Our local Tampa FOX station was there the other day.
http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/story/25535194/good-day-goes-to-legoland